Opinion Piece by Alastair Scott
There are a few causes of the lack of improvement in UK productivity. Some research sites a lack of investment. Other research released recently suggests that working from home causes an 18% dip in productivity.
We can’t afford to increase staff wages any higher, and our staff can’t make a return to a workplace they never left. So, what is it specifically that impacts productivity in our industry?
Productivity is driven in two parts: motivation and engagement, and secondly, deployment. In any case, we can expect that when people are under too much pressure, service levels drop. That’s where technology comes in.
Every hour of labour has a cost, but often, it does not deliver the same return in sales. Over the years, a lot of industry tech has worked towards rectifying this.
The biggest changes to technology have been payment processes. Tapping a credit card is so much faster than changing cash. Self-ordering has also had a major impact, with lots more to come in this area, I suspect.
Kitchen technology has changed less. The obvious move to using specialist machines to do the bulk of kitchen work has to be balanced against the loss of quality.
It is early stages, but these innovations will take work out in bigger establishments over time.
Work-reducing developments have led to a theoretical 10% improvement in productivity. But here, the rubber meets the road.
If you only have three people on a shift, then a 10% improvement in productivity doesn’t allow you to save a team member, so no actual productivity is made because you’re not getting more done for less cost. It merely makes the job easier for the member of staff.
How much can a team member deliver? Has it gone up as a result of technological improvements, or has it gone down because we can’t expect our teams to work as hard as we once did?
The truth is that if we put our people under too much pressure then service levels drop. We fail to serve people at the bar fast enough; we fail to offer a second drink; we fail to get the bill down fast enough and turn the table; and most importantly, we fail to say goodbye.
Shift productivity can be boosted by 25% with effective deployment. It’s about telling your team when you need them, where you need them and what you need them doing. The rest will follow: great guest experience, upsell, improved team engagement and increased revenue.
So, there’s a real skill there, which is not asking our teams to work under pressure, but to match supply and demand as well as we can and help make our teams happy, fulfilled, and productive. That is when they work at their best.
